


Into The Heart of the Night

by Laily



Series: The IronStrangeFrost Compendium [6]
Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, Fluff, FrostIron - Freeform, Frostironstrange, Hurt/Comfort, IronStrange, IronStrangeFrost, M/M, Multi, On and on it goes, Polyamory, Protective Stephen Strange, Protective Tony Stark, Sick Loki (Marvel), Strangefrost, Strangefrostiron
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:14:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27508198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laily/pseuds/Laily
Summary: Tony keeps vigil over a very ill Loki. Stephen is at the end of his wits trying to hold it together.
Relationships: Loki/Stephen Strange, Loki/Tony Stark, Loki/Tony Stark/Stephen Strange, Tony Stark/Stephen Strange
Series: The IronStrangeFrost Compendium [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2135610
Comments: 18
Kudos: 258





	Into The Heart of the Night

“How’s he doing?” A hushed voice spoke suddenly from behind.

Tony distractedly tilted his face to accept a quick peck on the cheek. “No better than when you left.”

Stephen clucked his tongue in displeasure, and something akin to irritation flashed across his face. It was a front for an emotion foreign to Tony and Stephen both, only that Tony had a name for it and Stephen did not. 

A week into the sudden illness that had robbed their beloved of the strength to even walk, Tony was going to show his concern any damn way he liked. 

Tony laid a hand on Loki’s forehead, grimacing at the furnace-like heat searing the palm of his hand. “He’s burning up again.”

His lover had stopped thrashing a while ago. Whatever that meant, wherever Loki was, Tony hoped he was now dreaming the sweetest of dreams, that no nightmares or pain had followed him to a place Tony could not follow. 

If Loki could retain his consciousness long enough, he would laugh in Tony’s face at the sentiment, and Tony would welcome it. The few times Loki had opened his eyes since the sun disappeared behind the mountains, Tony had been filled with overwhelming hope that the raging fever had finally broken. 

That hope had long since shattered; where there should have been light and merry mischief and love, there was only emptiness.

“You alright?” Stephen’s deep voice rumbled against the cheek Tony had laid against his chest. 

“He didn’t recognise me,” Tony said, his light tone belying the quiet devastation in his eyes.

“It’s the fever, Tony.” Ever the logical thinker, Stephen said the only consoling words he could think of. “A transient fugue state, a state of mild delirium, nothing more.” 

Tony sniffed. He held nothing against Stephen, of course. His partner may be the Sorcerer Supreme, but Stephen was a man of modern medicine first. He had been against the idea of bringing Loki here in the first place, to this secret hideout Tony almost forgot he owned. Enshrouded in the Adirondacks, Tony’s minimalist luxury cabin was just as equipped as any of the hospitals Stephen kept insisting they take Loki to…in the sense that they could do absolutely nothing. Loki may look outwardly human, but that was where the physical and physiological similarities ended. 

So Stephen could say whatever he wanted, about the delirium being a normal stress response to a harmless Midgardian contagion – this was not normal, and Tony had a suspicion Stephen knew that and was freaking out in his own way. 

“I’ve bought some provisions. Why don’t you take a break? I’ll look after him for a while,” Stephen suggested gently. 

“Any word from Thor?” 

The shadows under Stephen’s eyes darkened. “Their Healers have reached the end of their wits.”

“Did we do this to him?”

Stephen did not answer. He slowly walked to the other side of the bed, drawing the blinds to confer some semblance of privacy. It darkened the room a little too much, and he pulled them back again slightly to allow some of the disappearing light of day to seep through, and Tony’s heart lifted at being able to see Loki’s face again.

He watched Stephen pull his gloves off one by one and place them carefully on the side table. He noted the longing in the way Stephen laid the back of his hand against the side of Loki’s neck, the grief in his blue-grey eyes. 

“Typical of him, isn’t it,” Stephen mumbled. “Spent days motherhenning over the both of us only to get sick himself.”

“This doesn’t look like a normal cold to me,” Tony said stubbornly as he had said so many times since Loki had fallen ill. 

“How _would_ a normal cold look on him?” It was a rhetorical question at best; for all his medical expertise and occult knowledge on the mysterious workings of the universe, Doctor Stephen Strange was just as clueless as the next person, and it infuriated him. 

His thumb shook more than usual as it traced the sharp slope of Loki’s cheekbone. “Did you manage to get him to eat anything while I was gone?”

Tony shook his head. “A few sips of water. Anything more he just brings back up.”

“You need to get something in you too,” Stephen said pointedly. “When was the last time _you_ had anything?”

“I'm not hungry,” Tony muttered. There was a hollow pit where his stomach was supposed to be. Anxiety and pure fear had turned it into a churning ball of knots, each more tangled than the one before. 

“Come on, Tony. You gotta help me out here. I can’t be worrying about you too,” Stephen pleaded. 

“That’s what Loki said,” Tony sniffed. “And look where we are.”

“You couldn’t have known this was going to happen, Tony,” Stephen said flatly. _I_ should have, he almost added.

Tony’s refusal to meet his gaze could have only been a sign of blame, and the invisible vise around Stephen’s chest tightened. He cupped a hand over his brows to hide his stinging eyes. He was so tired, and barely recovered from the nasty virus himself. 

“I am not questioning your competence, Doctor,” Tony said softly. “He is the Master of Deception, our Loki. He’s used to making himself look pretty for the cameras till he couldn’t no more.”

Tony had been the first to succumb to the virus, becoming sick enough to warrant a short stay in the hospital. Stephen had been away to attend to the untimely yet pressing matter of mysterious portals popping up all over the Eastern Hemisphere the Hong Kong Sanctum had been wise enough to alert him about. But he had spent a few nights with Tony before leaving, which could explain how he could have caught the same virus upon his return. Incubation periods were a nasty thing, and last he heard, his two fellow Guardians had come down with the same, albeit milder version of the illness.

Loki, being the confident, emboldening presence that he was, was Tony’s pillar of strength. He catered to Tony’s every need in Stephen’s absence albeit in his own special way of course, all the while reassuring Tony and the ever-sceptical Stephen that he was a God who’d lived through plagues and battle wounds and Midgardian illnesses would never touch him, et cetera et cetera. 

Lies. It had all been lies. 

Ironically, no one believed in Loki’s lies more than Loki himself. Why else would he have worn a glamour to camouflage his growing pallor and soldier on through his own aches and pains so he could nurse both Tony and Stephen to health up till the point of collapse?

“Yeah. He is a bit extra, isn’t he?” Stephen smiled wistfully. 

“That’s why we love him, don’t we?” Tony asked bitterly.

Stephen’s smile wavered. He swallowed hard. “Tony.”

“Fuck. I’ve been so selfish, haven’t I?” Tony reluctantly released Loki’s hand. “I’m sorry, Stephen.” 

Stephen shook his head. “He’s as much yours as he is mine.”

“He would have given anything to hear you say that out loud,” Tony whispered, aghast.

“He knows we love him, Tony,” Stephen said fiercely.

“Does he?” Tony asked sadly. The prickling came to his eyes again, and Tony knew he had to get out of there. His tears were his own, just as Stephen’s were his. 

He cleared his throat and stood up abruptly. “Did you get the tomato soup I asked for? Please tell me you did. Oh god, don’t tell me you got Heinz. I hate Heinz.”

Stephen rolled his eyes. “ ‘Wolfgang Puck's Organic Tomato Basil Bisque’, yes, I did, Stark. I’m not a complete moron.”

Tony’s cheeky grin was infectious. “Love ya.”

He took one look at Stephen’s haggard face and the cheeky grin faltered, its place taken by the watery smile of someone trying so damn hard not to cry. “It’s alright to not be strong, you know. Not in front of me.”

Stephen could feel the blood drain from his face, but before he could come up with some sort of response, Tony had made his exit as abruptly as Stephen had made his entrance.

He was going to have to make it up to Tony somehow for having intruded upon Loki and Tony's private moment earlier. 

But that would have to wait, for now Loki and Stephen were finally alone, and the moment, however fleeting, however brief, was theirs.

“Loki.” 

The ghostly pale figure on the bed did not stir. 

“Babe,” Stephen called again, quietly, using the nickname Loki hated but secretly loved.

If Loki had only been pretending to be asleep to get their attention, he was certainly very good at it.

Stephen poured hot water from a flask into a clean bowl. He reached inside his tunic and removed a small pouch. He upended its content into the hot water, carefully making sure that every leaf, every delicate bud flowered in the water.

It was the last resort. His Majesty King Thor had been adamant in his edict. If his Brother were to pass on, it was the King's wish that Loki be taken back to New Asgard to spend his final days with his family. 

Stephen could not very well object, for it was well within Thor's prerogative to bring Loki home.

“The elderflowers I picked myself from the Vivarais Mountains in Auvergne. France is nice at this time of year. We should go there sometime," Stephen resumed the one-sided conversation. "The yarrow is from The Ancient One’s own herbarium at Kamar-Taj. Strangely enough, her wards let me through so...technically it wasn’t stealing, right? Technically.”

He missed Loki’s laughter so much he could almost hear it. _Tut-tut. Shame on you, Sorcerer Supreme._

Stephen breathed his magic into the mixture, an incantation so ancient the last of the shamans who spoke the language died out some two hundred years ago. It was a spell he only found by some stroke of fortune in The Ancient One's private archives, jealously guarded and warded off against intruders even after her death.

She must have known Loki in life for Stephen to have found the healing spell as timely as he did. The potion even came with its own medicine dropper, an antique belonging to an apothecary rumoured to be the descendant of Moyse Charas himself. That was the thing with magic. There was simply no rhyme or reason to it, at least none that the old Stephen Strange could see.

Please let this work, he prayed silently.

Using his thumb, Stephen carefully parted Loki's slack lips and dropped exactly seven drops of the tincture slowly into his mouth, one for each day that Loki had been ill.

The result may not be instantaneous, Stephen had been warned as much. So he lifted the covers and slid into bed beside his sleeping lover. 

He counted each shallow breath. He stroked every line creasing the outer corner of Loki's eye. 

He pushed limp black hair away from the high forehead and the long, graceful neck. 

His eyes fell upon a tiny bruise just abutting the underside of Loki's jaw, its lividity vibrant against the white of Loki's skin. 

It was not Stephen's mark. Yet the love behind it was just as true. 

Stephen was gambling on sentiment after all, his and Tony's both. He knew not if it was enough to bring Loki back, but he and Tony had nothing to lose but each other if he failed.

He could not fail. 

“You have to pull through.” Stephen pressed a long, deep kiss on the bruise, his words the wispiest of whispers. “You _must.”_

After what seemed like eternity, he felt Loki stir, heard him whisper weakly, "Tony?" 

Stephen's answer was another kiss, this time pressed to another spot an inch above Loki's jutting collarbone, a spot that was all and irrevocably his. 

"Stephen?" Loki murmured, eyes still closed but searching. 

"It's me." Tears filled Stephen's eyes. "It's me, babe."

“I’m cold,” Loki whined. 

Stephen frantically palmed Loki’s forehead. His hand came away sweaty and clammy and a huge wave of sheer relief washed over him. “Your fever’s broken.”

Loki opened eyes heavy with exhaustion and sleep, but they were as clear as Stephen always remembered. 

“There you are,” Stephen exclaimed giddily, his light-headedness forcing him to fall back onto the bed in joyous euphoria, but not before he gathered Loki into his arms, trembling limbs and all. 

Tony must have sensed it too, for not long after, Stephen heard the thunderous sound of footsteps followed by the door opening with a bang. The bed jarred violently as Tony threw himself on top of it, and the three of them soon found themselves intertwined, limbs and lips, heart and soul.

All that was good in the world, they were holding in their arms, and they were not letting go. They held each other steadfast and deep into the heart of the night lest the Goddess of Death lay claim to any of them before his time.

She would come calling again, definitely, but not this night. And for now, that was all that mattered. 

**Author's Note:**

> Another very self-indulgent Loki sick fic, #sorry not sorry. I blame Dua Lipa and Angele's new song 'Fever', this is on them, 100%. And all my enablers on Discord, you know who you are.
> 
> Edit: I've got a new [Tumblr](http://lailyn.tumblr.com) primarily for writing/gushing about Ironstrangefrost/Frostiron/Strangefrost. Do check it out for drabbles, missing scenes, vignettes etc.


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